


What a funny thing (life is)

by gaydiangelo



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Friends to Lovers, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marauders Friendship (Harry Potter), Mention of abuse, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Remus and Tonks are not together, Sad with a Happy Ending, mention of trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:22:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29512452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaydiangelo/pseuds/gaydiangelo
Summary: When Sirius was eleven years old, he was clueless. Now 44, he knows two things: one, life is not what it seems; two, all the poets are wrong. In another words: he's just a man trying to get by. It's not until he moves back in with his best (and only) friend slash former love of his life that he understands he lived all those years without actually living a day. Really, they should give him an award for that.
Relationships: Nymphadora Tonks/Charlie Weasley, Remus Lupin & Nymphadora Tonks, Sirius Black & Harry Potter, Sirius Black & Teddy Lupin, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	What a funny thing (life is)

**Author's Note:**

> Well, hello there. This is a prologue - I know prologues are supposed to be short and actually be placed before action takes place, but bare with me here. The story focuses on Sirius more (at least for the next two chapters) but be assured there will be a Remus chapter, too. Big thank you to Rubie for beta reading it and calming my nerves.  
> Oh and if you think Sirius sounds bitter in this one.... wait until I post the first chapter.

Life, in Sirius’ professional opinion, is a funny thing.

“Professional” is a big word for someone who lives alone in an apartment with only a bed and a nightstand in it, but at the big age of 40 and 4, Sirius thinks he should know a thing or two about it – life, that is. There are several things he considers a part of the cycle; friendship, family, guilt, responsibilities, to name a few. Death, too, of course. Birth. Betrayal. But never love.

Oh, Sirius knows of love – knows about it, too, in the most twisted way possible – and he thinks highly of it, the same way he thinks highly of morning walks during winter and healing spells. He knows love is the soil and foundation of things, he knows it’s both a blessing and a curse placed upon a person; he knows it all. It’s just in Sirius’ professional opinion, love is a luxury. A reward, even, though he suspects it would mean people get rewarded for doing horrible things, and that leaves a bitter taste in the old man’s mouth; it is not, however, a necessity. You can live through life without love and live it well. There’s no higher power that says one must love to live, despite whatever these old, dead poets say. You can survive without love. You can be happy without love.

Just because he isn’t, doesn’t mean you can’t.

Sirius has loved before – he loves, still, his godson, his friends, his evening routine, his old record player and the bike he built with his own hands when he was seventeen, but he doesn’t love love, like a dying man in a need of air. He doesn’t spend his days sitting on a bench, pining after that one person that can make him smile more than anyone, ever, he doesn’t think of one name every time he closes his eyes during bedtime. He doesn’t love anymore, simple as that. Which is why, as a self-proclaimed life expert (and you’d think, a man that escaped death not once, not twice, but thrice, will know a thing or two about life), he doesn’t think of love as a part of the cycle. It just doesn’t fit in.

And if he gets called a cynical man because of it… Well. He has loved before. It ended. Life went on.

That’s what Sirius says to James, when they are sitting together by the fireplace at the Potter’s, snowed in and content. He loves holding James Sirius, who is less than one year old, an absolute delight of a person and named after him and his best friend. It brings him peace in a way he did not think was possible, after all those years he spent away from it. It also allows him to talk to the kid. Sirius likes sharing his thoughts aloud with anyone and everyone who will listen, and it so happens James simply cannot run away from it; in the future he might, and Sirius will yell after him stuff like _I held you while you were crying_ or _You never did that when you were little_ , and it will be lovely. Until then, he has to listen.

“That’s why, Jamie,” Sirius says, tone serious and calm, like he’s sharing the universe’s most daring secrets with him “you must always know what comes first in life.”

“I hope you are not corrupting my godson with your bitter old man talk.” A woman’s voice rings in the hall. Tonks steps into the light; she’s carrying her bag with her, one thing she can never let go of, and behind her Teddy. They both look flushed from the cold.

“Sirius is an old man?” asks Teddy. Sirius laughs at that; Teddy is five years old – six in a couple of months – and he inherited all of his mother’s traits: no tact, no grace and a sharp wit.

“Very old. I might start falling apart soon.” “Hm.”

Both sit down next to the fire - Teddy on the floor, as close to the heat as he can get, Tonks on a chair with her feet up – and look at him. They’ve been doing that a lot lately, Sirius thinks, but he doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t like asking what people think these days, nor does he particularly wonder about it. It’s just a thing that happens. Funny thing about life is that things happen whether we like it or not.

Instead, Sirius shifts a still sleeping James in his arms and looks at Teddy. “What were you up to?”

“Sledding!” he replies. Teddy is a cheerful kid, especially in the presence of those he finds comfort in. Sirius likes that about him; that despite all those terrible things that have happened to his parents, Teddy remains a thing of happiness. Kids are wonderful that way. “Dad is packing up the sledges.” Sirius nods and looks at the door.

> Remus.

If there is one thing in his life Sirius could never figure out fully, it’s Remus. Not because of his lack of trying, as he’s spent so many hours in his bed trying to comprehend the puzzling piece that is Remus Lupin. If counted up, they could come up to years, for sure, if not decades. They’ve known each other for that long – they’ve been together in this for that long.

_Together_ is a strong word. His relationship with Remus is an ambiguous one. When they met, Sirius wasn’t sure what to think of the young, scrawny boy covered in scars (he still isn’t, to be clear, though Remus no longer is a young, scrawny boy). When they dated in their sixth year of Hogwarts, which can only be described as the best year of Sirius’ life, he thought foolishly he had his lover figured out – only to be hit with crushing reality two months after leaving the school grounds. Now, years and years later, with Remus being a father, a professor, a Ministry researcher and simply a friend, Sirius has to admit it; he has no _shit_ figured out, let alone Remus.

When the war ended – for good this time, or Sirius might actually pack his bags and depart to the other side – a few glorious years ago, they were all left in pieces. Tonks had a baby with the memory of a judgment lapse, as she fondly called her one-night stand with Remus, the Ministry had half of the country to rebuild and Sirius… Well, Sirius had nothing, years of trauma and emotional pain aside. It was rather normal, in his opinion, that he started drifting, holed up in his apartment (the same one he lives in right now, though the nightstand was different), trying very hard to keep his life… No, keep _himself_ in one piece. He remembers that time like through a fog; perhaps it was because he was tired of surviving (one does not live through Azkaban without the desire to survive, that much he can vouch for), or maybe it was hard to see the purpose of doing it anymore, but Sirius was not doing well then, not in the slightest. When everyone else was moving forward, he was stuck in the same place he’s been his entire life, white sheets covering bodies of people he’s lost and the people he’s been.

No, he was not doing well. But neither was Remus.

Perhaps it was the knowledge that they were both drifting, or it was those years of friendship (and love), or it was simply because they were both stubborn people who hated letting go, but Remus and Sirius remained friends after The Second War; they remained friends when Teddy turned one and Tonks went back to work, saying she could feel her bones going still (she hates being still, she always did, Remus knew that), when Teddy turned was about to turn two in a week or so but his parents were both trapped on missions out of the country, so Sirius stayed with him in the little cottage that was a gift Remus got from a Ministry worker for saving his life during the Battle… Long story short, they remained friends through it all. Sirius was very glad for that; if there’s one person in his life that he’d hate to give up, it was surely Remus.

“What are you thinking about?” he hears Teddy asks. When Sirius looks up, the kid is still on the floor, pieces of paper lying around him. Tonks had fallen asleep on the chair with her feet still up.

“Just things.” He replies. Teddy looks at him with his big, brown eyes – his father’s eyes, something in his mind tells him – and frowns. “What things?”

“Like how much I like cheesy toast.”

“You’re lying!” Teddy exclaims. Then he smiles. “I like cheesy toast too.”

“To the kitchen, then!” Teddy runs ahead, his kid origami long forgotten, and as Sirius places James down in his crib, it strikes him just how domestic they all are. He keeps thinking of it when he places food on a plate, and when Remus walks in, covered in snow and flushed from the cold. He keeps thinking of it when he goes to bed in his own apartment that night, and when he wakes up in the morning the next day, a message from Remus awaiting him on the table. He doesn’t stop thinking about it even when he sits down on the floor, three days later, book in hand, with his mind far too occupied to do anything but that.


End file.
